I have a wee bit of vertigo, which means I have my phone read me emails and texts. This can lead to some assertions I don’t think the authors are intending. Enjoy!
The idea for this newsletter started when I got an author’s newsletter that my (marvelous) app Speaking Email read to me as “Out Now: New romance non-binary vampire non-binary vampire”
Excited, because that would be an awesome romance, but confused because it wasn’t exactly this author’s wheelhouse, I clicked over to my regular email and saw “Out Now New Romance 🧛🧛”
This has happened to me before, though never to such hilarious results. Audio descriptions of emojis often don’t mean what we think they mean.
Here are my favorites. (Try to imagine hearing these without the image for reference)
😂 Face with tears of joy
🐥 Standing chick
😒 Unamused face
😞Disappointed face
😔 Sad and pensive face
😟 Worried face
😕 Confused face
😣 Persevering face. (This is exactly how I look when persevering. I don’t know about you.)
😖 Confounded face
🤬 Red face with censoring symbols over mouth
😥 sad but relieved face with sweat
😢 crying face (the nuance between these two!)
😑 Expressionless face
😧😦 Surprised and dismayed face (with and without eyebrows). Why in the annals of emojis do we need one with and without eyebrows, who knows?
😪 Sleepy face. (Why??) I thought this one was booger face!
😵 Dizzy face with discomfort. (My favorite!)
😈 Smiling face with horns (Is the word devil banned?)
👾 Alien monster. (But he is so cute!)
🤘 Hand making the sign of the horn, which sounds like a serious Epic Fantasy: the Sign of the Horn.
🗣 Speaking silhouette head
🧑🌾 Non-binary farmer
🦹♂️ Man supervillain
🦸♀️ Woman superhero. (Apparently, the difference between a superhero and a super villain is a mask with wings. Good to know!)
💁 Information desk attendant ( you’ll be very sad to know this one is not raising the roof, it turns out.)
🐻❄️ Polar bear face
🦕 Sauropod-like dinosaur (We don’t even have an accurate dinosaur! )
🍃 leaves fluttering in the wind
🌼 Flower (Yes, this apparently is the quintessential flower)
🪐 Ringed planet. (There are eight planets but apparently, you only get a Saturn standing in for all of them. And not even called Saturn.) While we have every single western astrology symbol. (♈️♉️♊️♋️♌️♍️♎️♏️♐️♑️♒️♓️) Sigh.
🍠 Roasted sweet potato (the only cooked vegetable amongst all the vegetables for some reason.)
🤸 Person doing a cartwheel (Not just a bad handstand as I’d assumed)
🚙 Sport utility vehicle
🚗 Car
🚛 Articulated lorry
🚚 Truck
🚍 Oncoming bus
🚆 Front-facing train
⛱ Umbrella stuck in the sand
☂️ Umbrella
🏩 Love hotel (I am not making this up)
🌇 Cityscape at dusk pictorial card
💵 Banded wad of American dollars
📯 Postal horn. (Sadly this is not a French horn with legs. It turns out)
📅 Calendar. (Why July 17th. Why?)
🔏 Lock with ink pen (Also why???)
❣️ Red heart as an exclamation mark
💓 Beating heart
💗 Pulsating heart
🉑 Japanese sign meaning acceptable. (We need one of these!)
📛 Name badge. (The best name badge!)
🚮 Put litter in its place symbol
🔣 Input symbol for symbols symbol
▶️ Right pointing triangle symbol. (Aka play button?)
👁🗨 Eye in a speech bubble representing the anti-bullying campaign
🔳 White square (strangely enough)
As you’re typing out your emojis, may you never forget the audio description may be telling a story you have not intended!